Zayo Extortion

Mon Aug 15 15:10:22 UTC 2016

Nope, have not seen any of this bad stuff you speak of.

I can say that over the last few years i have done a ton business with Zayo
and they are top flight in every respect.

On Saturday, August 13, 2016, HonorFirst Name Ethics via NANOG <
nanog at nanog.org> wrote:

> Question to the NANOG community,  Is anyone else being extorted by Zayo?
> Is Zayo threatening shutdown over bogus and fabricated charges?
>
> The purpose of this message to the group is twofold: 1) to share our
> experience being extorted by Zayo with the community and 2) to understand
> the depth and extent of Zayo's less than ethical behavior by getting
> feedback from the community.
>
> Abovenet was a great organization with quality service, reasonable prices
> and nice folks to work with.  Since being acquired by Zayo we have seen a
> significant degradation of service quality and responsiveness which is not
> unusual from a provider, but Zayo has taken things to a level of low ethics
> that would make Tony Soprano proud.
> Most interestingly they seem to identify points where you are dependent on
> them and threaten a shut down unless you pay them some arbitrary amount.
> In our case we use multiple Zayo IP, Transport, and Colo Services -- they
> set their extortion amount at $128,000.  A completely arbitrary and
> fabricated number.  They put significant pressure threatening to shut us
> down by setting their lawyers on us.
> Our detailed contract breakdowns, invoice and payment spreadsheets, along
> with all other commonsense and professional efforts were simply
> disregarded.  At one point their lawyers and accounting people had the
> nerve to say "our accounting system does not track invoice details -- it
> only shows the total amount due so your numbers mean nothing to us."  All
> the while they relentlessly levied disconnect threats with short timelines
> such as: "if you don't pay us $128,000 by this Friday, we will shut your
> operation down."
> We have had anecdotal feedback that we are not alone in our experience and
> that there are many more like us.  If you and your company have had a
> similar experience with Zayo, please share it with the group or if like us
> you are concerned about retaliation from Zayo, please respond privately.
>
> If the group shares their experiences  the public shaming may drive Zayo
> to stop operating like mafia thugs.  If the problem is as common as we
> suspect, it may warrant getting the Attorney General involved.
>
> In the mean time, I strongly urge anyone already in a relationship with
> Zayo or considering a relationship to make sure your are well diversified
> with other more ethical carriers. Otherwise please consider another
> organization to work with.
> In our case we were better of with Ransomeware, than Zayo as a vendor!
> Its cheaper and less damaging
>
> A Zayo victim and a NANOG Member
>